Yesterday, At the home, Not her home, I found her sleeping Lying soft upon the mattress Curled up fetally on her left side, As almost always for 40 years past. I had forgotten, utterly the soft heaving of her breast, I had forgotten, totally that stone-calm face hiding a hundred hurts and a thousand worries. [...]
Even fairytales, or perhaps especially fairytales, should always tell the truth. So, here’s one truth: Big Dog was a bad dog. Just ask any of her neighbors. She had bitten more than her fair share, and if some of them had also torn into her from time to time, well, that still was no excuse. [...]
Battered and barren, slammed against cast iron sky, Ignored and forgotten, Their dazzling leaves now a distant sorrow. Still beautiful. In a December fast fading. She walks, head bowed and listing, Uprooted, Upright nevermore. But still beautiful. This December dying fast. Crippling thoughts Fracturing time, Slammed against winter facts, I whimper. I fall. The year ending and no new beginning. The Imaginative Conservative applies [...]
As we have greatly miscalculated Russia’s sense of betrayal and alienation, Russia has greatly miscalculated Ukrainian tenacity and patriotism. But we have all already fallen into a no-win situation. It doesn’t matter how this ends, whether with the collapse or humiliation of Russia, or the incorporation of Ukraine into a larger federation of Slavic states—or [...]
There are many issues with which I still can find no common ground with either party. There are many other issues as well that neither party adequately and responsibly handle, but there is one issue that I simply could not ignore anymore: racism. Since 1972, I have always voted either for the Democratic candidate or [...]
Ambassador Young Ambassador Johnny Young. Johnny. Just plain, old Johnny, as Johnny once referred to himself. And that description may be the most remarkable thing about Johnny. He was just plain, old Johnny even when he was a four-time ambassador. His Christian humility seemed to gain luster with each promotion and award. I cannot [...]
The only time you can be really sure that both the Republicans and Democrats are wrong is when they all agree with each other. This is certainly true in the recent case of poor Representative Mary Miller, besieged and berated on all sides for saying something that very few of us would ever really dispute. [...]
Everything is going well, until it isn’t. Then it is the end of the world, until it isn’t. Unbridled confidence and unfounded panic are the poles we traverse, A jagged, looping path along which we cry beseechingly and grasp breathlessly. […]
The great question that perplexed progressives throughout much of the 21st century was how to completely untether us from the past, thereby for the first time in history truly liberating ourselves from our moorings and ushering in a new age of gender freedom, radical equality, and ethnic equity. The Crime His fingers twitched, but they [...]
I’m certain it was late March 1975. Or perhaps early April. My certainties are increasingly uncertain with each passing year. Whether late March or early April, I saw her for the first time at a nearby table in the university cafeteria. She was so lovely and animated that I could no longer hear the discussion [...]
I had barely opened my eyes and the sun was already setting. I had barely begun to breathe in the hot, humid air when a chill sliced across my throat and poured into my veins. I had just begun to smile easily, the sun radiating through my pores and the moon soothing my fevered songs of [...]
America would be a more wholesome, more unified, and more decent place if liberals stopped thinking they have a monopoly on compassion and intelligence and conservatives stopped thinking they have a monopoly on patriotism and God. Warning: This is not a twenty-years-too-late movie review of a loosely-adapted romantic-comedy of The Taming of the Shrew. Instead, [...]
Images certainly can be much more compelling than mere words. But like words, how images are used and when they are used are opportunities for manipulation. The photograph is unnerving. One cannot look at it without it breaking your heart. It is the sort of image that sticks in your mind forever and haunts you [...]
Last winter lies vanquished, Sprawled under lolling hills of green, Strangled amid red-berried brambles, Smothered deep beneath bare feet stomping along forest paths. Winter’s proud tyranny, Now humbled by the lilting laugh of children And drowned in dreams of unconquerable sun. […]